From Now On, Kill Each Other
I had completely seized control of the Gangnam government's regime. The cabinet was restructured with members of the National Security Emergency Measures Committee. From the existing high-ranking bureaucrats, we kept only those who were useful and quick to surrender to us, sweeping away the rest. We left untouched the civil servants who had never held political power and focused solely on administrative duties.
The organization was rotten beyond corruption, on the verge of collapse. During the purge, we discovered that many government departments didn't actually do anything meaningful. They were just departments created by the president to hand out empty titles to his cronies to maintain power. Even the civil servants in those departments didn't know what their jobs were supposed to be.
On the other hand, the civil servants handling the essential administrative tasks that kept the country running had no power or voice. Meanwhile, the useless departments, obsessed with political maneuvering and oblivious to how the nation functioned, wielded strong influence.
"These guys... even without us, they would've collapsed on their own soon enough," Han Byeol said, closing her eyes and shaking her head.
"Yeah..."
We rounded up all the useless ones and threw them in prison. Of course, the arrest orders came from the Gangnam president himself.
The four executives from Nakyuan were still staying in Gangnam. The Gangnam president had become a complete puppet, and the key positions in the government were filled with our insiders and those who had worked diligently but been thoroughly excluded from power until now.
The high-ranking bureaucrats in charge of national administration chose to cooperate with us without hesitation upon hearing that the Gangnam government had become a puppet state of the Union. The president and his colluding military brass announced to the public that they had "successfully suppressed the rebellion."
The captured high officials—excluding a few we decided to spare—were all slated for trial. We'd already decided on death sentences for them. With no intention of holding proper trials, we planned summary executions right after the verdicts.
Naturally, the Gangnam citizens rejoiced. And in the next operation, I couldn't hold back my shock.
The next step was a massive roundup of the upper class—the aristocratic forces that had been gnawing away at Gangnam. They resisted fiercely, even mobilizing their private mercenary armies, but they crumbled in the end.
At first, sensing something off when the president—who had been watching their every move—issued arrest orders against them, they demanded a direct meeting with him. When I instructed him to refuse, they screamed that they would resort to armed struggle. To them, I extended a hand of reconciliation.
They seemed to have caught wind that the Union's leader had taken over the Gangnam regime. But lacking any real loyalty, they just figured it was a change of puppets.
When I made a conciliatory gesture, they responded with an attitude of "Don't try to climb over us anymore." I let them keep enjoying their privileges as before. And over the next week, thirteen of Gangnam's upper class went missing.
Their mansions were littered with the mangled bodies of the mercenaries they had hired, while their employers vanished without a trace. My orders, of course. I had the executives kidnap them. Im Jui, in particular, played a huge role using her stealth.
The thirteen captured upper-class members were all locked in an underground prison. Han Byeol asked me, "What should we do with these captured trash?"
I had considered consulting the Union's executives or the teachers about how to handle the captured upper class, but a sudden idea flashed in my mind, and it seemed like the best approach. I replied to Han Byeol, "Cut off all their wrists and send those wrists as gifts to the remaining upper class."
"Yes. And after cutting them off?"
"Kill them all."
Han Byeol nodded with a smile.
Now, the insiders who held real power in Gangnam stepped up and personally severed the wrists themselves. They seemed to have a lot of pent-up resentment. The wrists were neatly packaged and dropped one by one into the courtyards of the upper-class mansions by drone at night.
The next day, all the remaining upper class gathered and came to the presidential residence. "We must have lost our minds. Please forgive our sin of presuming to crawl over you without knowing our place," their representative said, bowing deeply.
We arrested eight more. Those who surrendered their assets and groveled were spared. We applied charges of rebellion, executed them all, confiscated their property for the national treasury, and hung the corpses of twenty-one upper-class members in the capital of the Gangnam government.
The citizens cheered wildly. They spat on the corpses and mocked them as they passed by.
"This is insane..."
And during the asset confiscation process, I was stunned again. There was just so much. How much had they hoarded? Dozens of private warehouses they owned were stuffed to the brim with canned goods, alcohol, rice, flour, daily necessities.
Mercenaries they had hired stood guard in front. The mercenaries claimed they were just paid gatekeepers and explained themselves eagerly; since they weren't really guilty, we let them go.
I tried to distribute all these absurdly abundant seized goods to the Gangnam citizens, but the teachers opposed it.
"Leader, winning the people's hearts is difficult."
"Leader, humans are cunning creatures. You must give when they are most starving for them to feel true gratitude."
"Is there a good way?"
"Send us to Gangnam."
The teachers volunteered to handle it personally in Gangnam. Their proposed method was a bit extreme, but it made sense.
"Now, let's start reaping."
"Yes, Leader."
I appointed the teachers as advisory members of the committee and entrusted them with rationing and handling the confiscated assets from the upper class. The moment they arrived in Gangnam, their first move was to "cut rations."
Under the pretext that the rebellion had worsened the situation, they halved the rations going to citizens. Meanwhile, rations to the military stayed the same.
At first, citizens vented their anger at the government, but as time passed, their resentment and disgust naturally turned to the soldiers still receiving full rations amid the chaos.
With the military's image already at rock bottom, the worsening perception made the soldiers anxious, leading them to pledge blind loyalty to the government.
When public discontent peaked, we resumed normal rations—but with a twist. We labeled all the confiscated food and the forcibly "donated" supplies from the upper class with the Union's mark.
The president then announced to the citizens that the "Union's Leader" had promised unconditional aid for their food shortage, and distributed the supplies. Public sentiment naturally swung toward the Union.
Among Gangnam's merchants and warlords, the quick-witted ones came to the Union instead of the Gangnam government, expressing intent to join.
"Have the executives stay in Gangnam a bit longer."
"Yes, now we can station Union troops in Gangnam bit by bit. The prevailing opinion among citizens is that they might as well merge with the Union at this point."
"Yeah, let's wait a little more and merge officially."
"But what about the insiders... no, the committee members?"
"..."
That was the biggest problem. The insiders who had eagerly led the treason now held real power in Gangnam. Contrary to expectations, a few were content with the status quo without greed, but most were power-hungry and avaricious.
They obeyed me now, but over time, they'd likely fill the vacuum left by the upper class. I held a meeting with the Union's top executives, Nakyuan's executives, and the teachers about this issue.
"Leader, can you entrust that matter to us as well?" one teacher said over the monitor, bowing his head.
"You sure? Controlling them won't be easy..."
The teacher replied nonchalantly, "Leader, they praise each other as revolutionary comrades now, but soon they'll tear into each other like mortal enemies."
"..."
I gave permission.
For the first time, I met an insider face-to-face—albeit over a video call on the monitor. This was the first time he'd seen my face.
"Leader, it's an honor to meet you like this. Thank you for making time."
"I heard you had something to say to me directly."
"Yes, Leader. I wanted to say a word about the recent organizational restructuring..."
He spoke to me with an uneasy expression. "Is it insufficient?" I shot back.
"No! No, Leader! That's not what I mean...!"
He explained that while he was grateful for the powerful positions they'd been given, there were overlapping authorities causing conflicts among the committee members, and he requested clarification on those areas.
The teachers' strategy had worked perfectly. The operation could be summed up in three words: matryoshka structure, dualization of power, and gray zones.
The teachers had cunningly implemented a nested hierarchy. They dualized power to create unnecessary friction and, in the process, engineered ambiguous gray areas of authority. It started looking like cooperative governance, but conflicts soon erupted, leading one to step forward and request a private audience with me.
"I understand perfectly. I'll order the adjustments."
He stood, bowing deeply. "Thank you, Leader!"
"My allies are too reliable..."
Through the power reorganization, the teachers assigned all the ambiguous authorities to the committee member who had come to me. Naturally, the perception spread among the members that "that bastard monopolized all the vague powers through his private meeting with the Leader."
He became the public enemy within the committee. Sensing the crisis, he requested another private audience this morning and expressed his intent to resign from the committee.
A Union affiliate filled the vacant spot. Since the president had already announced plans for a unified government with the Union, there was no backlash. Some citizens even complained that most committee positions were still held by former Gangnam figures despite the merger.
For the insider who resigned voluntarily, I reassigned him to a ceremonial honorific post with high protocol rank but no real power. Personally, I promised him protection from any political attacks and monthly rations of ample food and alcohol as reward for stepping down.
With one already out, the committee members began devouring and accusing each other. This was the teachers' divide-and-conquer tactic.
My desk was piled with reports from the committee members, most denouncing one another. Sipping coffee in my chair, I muttered, "From now on, kill each other."